From Discard to Luxury

From Discard to Luxury · Tony Motta

Tony MottaNew York · 2026

Sculpture I, from the front: a face of braided steel wire beneath a crown of colored acrylic petals, on a grey mannequin torso with exposed electronics

Drag to turn her

Would you believe she came from the trash of New York? Sustainability.

01 / 04 · front

Sculpture I

Every sculpture holds a piece of a New York street.

The head came from one neighborhood. The arm, from another. The body, from a third.

Some of them plug in. The light comes from within.

Salvaged steel wire, a discarded mannequin, circuit boards, colored acrylic.

Sustainability · one of a kind

Chosen piece by pieceon the streets of New York.

Every part was found, redesigned, reworked, and given a new life. That is why each sculpture exists only once: the city never leaves the same piece on the same corner twice.

What the city throws away becomes art.

AI visualization of the sculpture's parts.

Tony Motta on a Lower East Side sidewalk by day, wearing a tool belt and holding a drill, resting his hand on a discarded flat-screen TV — Lower East Side, New York.

The origin

The boy who made toysfrom what the street threw away.

A wooden house, with gaps where the wind and the rain came in. Six children. In the morning, his mother mixed flour with water, because there was no bread.

There were no birthday parties. There were no presents. There was love, and plenty of it.

With no toys, the boy went to the street. A stick, a stone, a broken toy car: from whatever he found, he invented his own toys and his own stories.

That is where the artist was born. Hardship, which for so many becomes an excuse, became for him the spark of creativity.

Today, on the streets of New York, the gesture is the same: finding what someone left behind and giving it another life.

He would not change a thing about his childhood.

I · The street

It all beginsin the mind.

First the idea. Then the sketch. Only then the street: Queens, Brooklyn, Harlem, Manhattan, in search of the pieces that will, aesthetically, fit what he imagined.

“It is like a game. I have to search, and I have to find.”Tony Motta

Tony Motta sketching a sculpture on an iPad in the reading room of a New York library — The sketch is born before the street.

A loose sketch of the sculpture: the wire-cage head with watercolor petals and the body in broken lines — The idea, on paper. The real piece comes from the street, and it is different.

II · The work is born

Raw, organic,made by hand.

He does not want art that is too perfect. He wants it raw, strong, organic, made by hand. A head comes from one neighborhood, an arm from another, the body from a third: every sculpture carries a piece of the city.

In the making, futurism meets romanticism, and the sculpture appears.

Tony assembles: board by board, wire by wire.

III · Four sculptures

Four sculptures.Each one exists only once.

One-of-a-kind pieces, made from what New York threw away. Each is born of Tony Motta's creative, visionary approach to sustainability, and there is no other like it in the world.

Sculpture I

Sculpture II

Sculpture III

Sculpture IV

In the studio

The same sculptures,at the scale of a table.

Small edition of Sculpture I on a walnut desk

Small edition of Sculpture II, with the colorful dreads, on a walnut desk

Small edition of Sculpture III, with the wire crown, on a walnut desk

Small edition of Sculpture IV on a walnut desk

Only 25 of each will be made, and then they will never exist again. Each one 3D-produced, painted by hand and lit from within, to carry the same essence as the originals.

Concept image. The pieces are still being made.

CaringKind · Forget Me Not Gala · New York, 2024

From the trash of New York to its grandest ballrooms.

Organizations invite Tony to bring art and sustainability to their galas. The sculptures leave the trash behind and arrive in Manhattan's most luxurious ballrooms: they belong in any setting.

IV · The paintings

A painting thattells its own story.

A real model. Accessories built from the city's electronic waste. A photograph taken apart, rebuilt as a mosaic and painted by hand in acrylic.

A painting on a concrete wall above a dining table, with Manhattan through the window

A painting in the classic entrance of an Upper East Side apartment

A painting on an easel in a dark room with a velvet armchair

A painting in a white loft, above a black bench

Rooms created with AI. Each painting is a photograph of the real canvas.

01The model and the look

02Accessories from electronic waste

03Photographed on the streets of New York

04Taken apart, rebuilt, painted by hand

Every canvas hides a QR code. Point your phone at it, and the painting shows how it was made.A short documentary inside every work

Tony painting a large canvas on the floor — On the floor, by hand.

Color, up close.

Recycledhaute couture.

Gowns created from bubble wrap, trash bags, chicken wire and industrial foam.

The dress does not matter. The woman does.

Bubble wrap · on the steps, at night

Black bags · at the bronze doors

White gown · Guggenheim, Fifth Avenue

Tony building a gown of black bags on a mannequin, with a heat gun — The gown is born in his hands.

Tony spray-painting a gown on the sidewalk — Spray paint, on the sidewalk.

Tony fitting the orange gown on a mannequin — Bubble wrap becomes haute couture.

“She can wear a thirty-thousand-dollar gown, or a gown made of trash bags, and feel wonderful. Because everything depends on the eye of the one who sees, and of the one who wears it.”Tony Motta

Bubble wrapBlack bagsChicken wireIndustrial foam

Each one is unique. There is no other like it in the world.